The Commonwealth Fund released a report on the usage of EMRs in Denmark. All primary care physicians (PCPs) use EMRs and 98 percent can manage their patients electronically. Usage went from 15 percent in the early 1990s to more than 90 percent by 2000. The keys to success are a coherent national policy, financial incentives to adopt health IT and technical support for providers, according to the report.
Obviously, there are huge differences between Denmark and the U.S. Denmark's healthcare system, which covers all its residents and is government run, but with a small private option. The country's 2008 population was 5.5 million, according to the World Bank, World Development indicators. The U.S. population was projected to be 305.5 million on Jan. 1, 2009, according to the U.S Census Bureau. I don't know what Danish PCPs thought of health IT in the early 1990s - whether there was a lot of resistance or not.
Despite the obvious differences, are the keys to Denmark's success enough to move the needle with U.S. PCPs? ARRA and its HITECH Act are products of a coherent national policy, if you agree that health IT adoption has bipartisan support. Under the HITECH Act, the financial incentives to adopt EHRs and the regional extension centers (RECs) and Beacon grants recognize the other elements of Denmark’s successful model.
It's a good start and a good model to follow, differences aside. Some will argue that the U.S. should allow health IT adoption to happen in the private market, but that is proving to move too slowly. Others have argued that if health IT adoption isn't happening, it's not happening because providers don't want it. I'm all for putting the HITECH Act full speed ahead with a lot of monitoring and resources to help achieve the goal.
I would be surprised if we can't achieve 90 percent or more adoption by 2020, if not earlier.
